16 posts categorized "Third-Party Outsourcing"

01/14/2015

VDC will be making the trip across the Atlantic again this year to visit the largest embedded technology tradeshow of the year, Embedded World in Nuremberg, Germany. Last year, the conference boasted 26,700 visitors and 856 exhibiting companies!.

While we are at the conference, we welcome the opportunity to meet with attending vendors to learn more about their embedded solutions and any show-related (or other recent) announcements.

10/22/2013

The M2M embedded software team here at VDC Research just published
a new report, 2013 Automated Test &
Verification Tools (ATVT), volume 3 of our Software & System Lifecycle
Management Tools intelligence service. The report looks into the most critical
trends and market drivers impacting the rapidly evolving use of dynamic test
and static analysis tools in the embedded and enterprise/IT markets.

We expect revenues for several product segments within ATVT to
expand at a double digit growth rate over the next several years, fueled by a
number of factors.

One of the primary challenges fueling ATVT use is that code
bases are expanding in size and complexity as software comes to account for an ever
greater percentage of system value. Companies face increasing pressure to
deliver more advances through software, and to do so faster. These
organizations are looking to several strategies, such as off-shoring to accelerate
the pace development while remaining within budget. This outsourcing of
embedded systems development enables the use of skilled engineers available at
considerably lower labor rates found in the international labor market.

The challenge of coordinating geographically distributed
development teams is one of the factors that we continue to see as a major
driver for increased use of formal lifecycle management tools. Our research
shows project teams with geographically distributed team members are more
likely to use automated test tools than those all sharing the same location. We
expect it will become increasingly critical for vendors to ensure their test
platforms provide the reliable, scalable performance required to execute and
manage tests for large installations across distributed geographic locations. There
is opportunity for ATVT suppliers to increase revenue and gain market share by
providing solution suites with the functionality these customers demand. Many
of these organizations will need broader solution suites that enable creation of
software code governance, policy definition, testing against those policies,
and enforcement of quality, security and efficiency metrics.

More insight

For further investigation and discussion about these trends
and others, please see our recently published report, 2013 Automated Test and Verification Tools, volume 3 of our 2013 Software &
System Lifecycle Management Tools Market Intelligence Service. This report
analyzes the emerging trends for commercially available testing tools,
including static analysis, dynamic, and model-based tools. It also covers the previously
mentioned tool types used for general software quality testing and defect
detection as well as those used for application security testing and
vulnerability management.

09/24/2011

The 2011 engineering survey data reports provide insight into the behavior, opinions, and demographics of embedded engineers, the degree to which embedded system engineering tasks are converging, and key system engineering trends likely to impact embedded systems manufacturers and solution providers over the short and long term.

This survey data is based on detailed Web survey responses collected worldwide in the March to July 2011timeframe and offers an understanding about the dynamics of the embedded market as they relate to current and future product development trends. This detailed data provides access to VDC’s extensive knowledge of the embedded engineering community based on the individual report topics.

Software (ESW, ESL, and EDA) and hardware (silicon and board) solution providers (whether currently engaged in the embedded market or not) should find this information of interest, as these reports provide valuable insight into the types of current and future requirements and methodologies that companies are using to engineer embedded devices/systems. This information can be used to assist companies in differentiating their solutions, developing competitive strategies, engineering products that better meet current and future customer requirements, and/or supporting key marketing and sales claims.

Systems manufacturers and semiconductor suppliers will also find value in this data in developing an understanding of key system engineering trends that will impact their business in the short and long term, gaining a perspective on the embedded software and hardware market, and an understanding of the vendor options available to them.

Stayed tuned for further information and sample data to be released from these individual reports.

06/30/2011

Although national employment reports have seemed to be inconsistent and unpredictable measurements of the health of the economy, the tech sector has appeared to be quicker to rebound than some of the other parts of the economy. In particular, we wrote earlier today about how the embedded engineering job market appears to be healing with over 55% of surveyed engineers reporting that the job market is better than last year.

Certainly, this improvement should be qualified with a giant asterisk denoting the dire conditions that the economy has struggled through over the last 2+ years, with many embedded system manufacturers still operating with leaner R&D departments than in 2008. Nevertheless, our research has corroborated this progress with strong commercial product growth as well as growth in our measurement of the Total Market for Embedded Software Engineering (TMESE).

As OEMs have been working to revamp their internal assets, however, the recovery of one important sector of the embedded ecosystem has lagged that of the overall market, the market for third-party engineering services. We believe that growth in this segment has begun to accelerate in 2011, however, as customer demands and new project starts have begun to outpace OEMs’ abilities and desires to expand their own internal resources.

In the past, outsourcing was often looked to as a means to profit from lower cost labor markets. Now, however, we believe that more organizations will look to it as a strategy to hedge operational costs and overhead liabilities during this still precarious economic recovery. Additionally, the underlying value of embedded systems has rapidly been shifting to software, much faster than some organizations can adjust the demographics of their internal workforces to accommodate. As such, we expect that outsourcing will become an increasingly critical tool in the arsenal of OEMs to efficiently staff new projects and, where possible, offload non-critical development tasks, allowing internal development teams to focus on value-adding and differentiating feature sets.

Although we believe that this revitalized industry trend toward third-party engineering services will help promote the continued (profitable) expansion of the embedded system market, it can also raise some additional challenges and concerns within the development process. OEMs looking to take advantage of these services need to take additional precautions in communicating project requirements and evaluating work quality, both through more rigorous internal review/testing as well as generally more robust software/system lifecycle management practices.

05/16/2011

VDC attended the 2011 Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose on May 3rd through May 5th and held face-to-face meetings at the conference with over 30 exhibitors. The Silicon Valley conference has always been the premier event in the US for embedded software and hardware suppliers and the customers they serve.

Conference organizers reported at the show that registration and attendance was up year over year. VDC observed during the course of the conference that there appeared to be more exhibitors than the prior year that the show floor area had expanded. In fact, we compared the exhibitors’ lists from this and last year conferences and found the number of exhibitors attending increased about 18%. Good news for the show promoters, exhibitors, and attendees.

Exhibitors we met with at the conference unanimously expressed upbeat views in terms of show attendance, floor traffic, and quality of leads from attendees. An improving economic climate and outlook has resulted in the supplier community reinvesting marketing budgets in attending conferences and OEMs seeking out technical solutions and looking to ramp investments in new project starts.

VDC awarded our software “Embeddy” for best of show live on the conference floor to Mentor Graphics for the successful launch of the Mentor Graphics Sourcery CodeBench with System Analyzer, a tool targeted at helping embedded developers quickly visualize and analyze system data to identify and debug or decode problem areas easily and improve design performance. Engineering organizations are utilizing more complex hardware architectures, which places greater strain on their ability to efficiently debug and optimize software code. As such we expect that tools such as Mentor Graphics’ Sourcery Systems Analyzer will become increasingly valuable to engineering teams as they look for greater insight into the performance of their applications on new, complex target architectures.

Honorable Mention

VDC awards an honorable mention to MicroChip for their announcement of the next generation MPLAB X IDE. The IDE includes cross platform support for Linux, Mac OS, and Windows operating systems and its support for the company’s entire portfolio of 8, 16, and 32-bit microcontrollers including all 800+ PIC microcontrollers, dsPIC digital signal controllers, and memory devices. MPLAB X is based on the Oracle-sponsored open source NetBeans platform which allows users to customize the IDE to suite development needs and is available for free download from the company website.

Best Demos

Freescale demonstrated their Robot Kit as an easy to use mechatronics development and demonstration platform and includes the Tower System Mechatronics Board which is programmable in C/C++ using CodeWarrior. For fast prototyping, the board is supported by Robot Vision Toolkit and RobotSee (a simple language with the power of C). The kit includes four PWM controlled servos, metal legs, and the board that has a 3-axis accelerometer and a 12 channel touch sensor.

Most Interesting Display

Samson, the 66-million year old dinosaur skeleton, was discovered in South Dakota in 1987 and on display at the conference. Most likely the largest display ever at an Embedded Systems Conference, this one was hard to miss, and drew large crowds. The display was presented in partnership by ESC Silicon Valley and Green Hills Software.

Walking the Floor

AdaCore, a leading supplier of Ada development tools and support services, made several announcements at the conference including the selection of the AdaCore Toolset for the Argos Satellite Project by Thales and Rockwell Collins selection of the GNAT Pro for advanced avionics display systems. In addition, the company had an announcement based on a recently published report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that speaks favorably on the use and suitability of the SPARK language for secure programming.

ARM announced the release of v5.0 of the ARM Compiler and availability of the DS-5 Professional Edition toolkit, replacing RVDS, as the reference software development tool chain for ARM processor-based ASICs and ASSP cores. In addition the company had announcements regarding a new ARM memory interface solution and highly configurable debug and trace solution for complex SoC designs, their ARM CoreSight SoC-400.

Atego announced the release and availability of their Aonix PERC Ultra 6 which provides compatibility with the Java 6 language and incorporates a new high performance compiler, graphical console and a new Virtual File System. In addition, the company announced the acquisition of HighRely, a provider of engineering services and software solutions for critical systems design and development to the avionics, medical equipment, nuclear and other industries.

Atmel announced the availability of new evaluation kits for both ZigBee Pro and RF4CE application development and prototyping. The evaluation kits come complete with reference boards with wireless support low power transceivers and software stacks. The company also announced expanding support for the Atmel AVR Xplained evaluation kits to support industrial, consumer, and automotive markets.

Cadence Design Systems announced their Cadence System Development Suite that features the Cadence Rapid Prototyping Platform and the Cadence Virtual System Platform and connects to the Palladium XP Verification Computing and Incisive Verification Platforms. These four platforms are focused on enabling hardware-software co-design from architectural-level development through to prototyping.

RTOS and tools supplier Enea made several announcements at the show including support for the ARM Cortex A9 MPCore and the Xilinx Zynq-7000 processing platform; the Enea Bare Metal Performance Tools (Enea BMP Tools) solution for multicore implementations on the NetLogic Microsystem XLP processors; and extended support for the company’s Optima IDE Tools to support heterogeneous multicore and Linux.

eCosCentric announced an update, version 3.1, to the eCosPro Developer Kit which focuses on and includes enhancements to cross development environment tools and host development environments supported. In addition the company announced with MIPS Technologies that the eCosPro RTOS has been ported to support the microMIPS instruction set architecture.

Eurotech announced the launch of the Zypad BR2000 series of vehicle mounted and man worn computers that are considered ideal for rugged environments. In addition, the company announced the launch of a new low power PC/104+ module based on the Vortex86DXprocessor, the CPU-1440.

Express Logic demonstrated their ThreadX RTOS and TraceX software logic analyzer that will offer information about the real-time behavior of a system running on the new AMD Embedded G-Series Platform that is expected to target transportation, medical and gaming systems. Express Logic’s ThreadX RTOS will provide instant on, hard real-time support, and scalable footprint.

Static analysis tool vendor GrammaTech announced a new sophisticated program-analysis engine that is being incorporated into the CodeSonar static analysis tool to identify data race conditions and other serious concurrency defects for multicore and multi-threaded applications. The technology is compatible with a wide range of compilers such as ARM’s RealView, Freescale’s Codewarrior, GCC, and Green Hills’ MULTI, and others.

Green Hills Software announced significant updates to their Platform for Secure Networking that include a new multicore communications API, fast path network packet optimization, support for native and virtualized third-party Linux Oss, and optimizations for Freescales QorIQ multicore networking processors. In addition, the company announced a new business unit, INTEGRITY Security Services. The new business unit will offer toolkits based on GHS proprietary FIPS compliant Cryptographic support for Windows, Linux, VxWorks, INTEGRITY, INTEGRITY-178B and general purpose Oss on ARM, Intel, Power Architecture, MIPS and others.

LDRA Software Technology announced support for object-code traceability within the LDRA tool suite. This capability ensures that verification problems found at the object-code level can be traced to the originating source code and requirements levels.

Logic PD announced their Torpedo System on Modules (SOM) which is described at the industry’s smallest embedded modules. The tiny Torpedo System on Modules is based on TI’s DM3730 DaVinci video processor and AM3703 Sitara ARM microprocessor. Android, Linux, and Windows CE BSPs are available for all versions of the DM3730 and AM3703 SOMs.

LynuxWorks announced the port and demonstration of their latest version of LynuxSecure separation kernel and hypervisor to the Themis Computer CoolShell and Rugged Enterprise Server platforms.

MontaVista Software showcased their commercial Linux products and services at the conference and also was demonstrating their Bare Metal Engine that provides a light weight, configurable run-time environment that offers RTOS performance inside a Linux environment.

QNX Software Systems reviewed recent announcements and the company’s continued focus for both safety and security. The QNX Neutrino RTOS Certified Plus has been certified to both IEC 61508 SIL 3 and Common Criteria EAL 4+ and is also POSIX-compliant. In addition, QNX highlighted their support for safety-critical medical devices built on the QNX Neutrino RTOS which as a proven history in FDA-certified devices.

Wind River announced the availability of and security certification for their Linux Secure to achieve Common Criteria EAL4+ certification by the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) using the General Purpose Operating System Protection Profile (GP-OSPP). In addition, the company announced version 4.6 their Simics full system simulator that expands over multiple boards, enhances team collaboration, and allows for target system visualization and surveillance.

Many names of companies, associations, technologies, products, and product types, etc. mentioned in this bulletin comprise Trademarks, registered or non-registered, owned by various entities. These are too numerous to mention individually. VDC acknowledges that ownership of these Trademarks exists and requests that readers acknowledge this as well.

ABOUT VDC

The Embedded Systems Industry Bulletin is published as part of VDC’s Embedded Software Market Intelligence Service. VDC has been providing embedded systems market intelligence for over 20 years.

03/08/2011

VDC attended the 2011 embedded world Exhibition & Conference in Nuremberg, Germany March 1st through 3rd. This bulletin presents a summary of the event.

This is the second time VDC Research has attended embedded world and, according to the show closing report, there were over 800 international exhibiting companies and 19,022 trade visitors. Both represent another year of record numbers of exhibitors and visitors participating in the conference.

Not surprisingly given the conference’s location in Germany, many trade show exhibitors used the venue to highlight a number of automotive announcements and reference designs. From AUTOSAR to infotainment stacks, it was clear that this rebounding industry held particular traction among conference attendees.

Beyond just the automotive market, however, the conference offered an overall atmosphere and buzz of excitement and interest, a dynamic that has been somewhat lacking from many industry events in recent years. Although the German economy remains stronger than that of many other geographic areas, we expect and hope that this conference’s momentum will carry over to the upcoming Embedded Systems Conferences and spell continued success for the embedded industry at large on the heels of the recent global recession.

The complete press release and more information & downloads for embedded world can be found here.

THE “EMBEDDIES” GO TO:

Best of Show

VDC awards our software “Embeddy” best of show to Esterel Technologies for their announcement of SCADE System and SCADE Lifecycle. We believe that the addition of SCADE System, which targets SysML based development, will become an increasingly valuable piece of Esterel’s portfolio as a growing percentage of engineering teams attempt to generate higher level designs of entire embedded systems, beyond just the control application modeling that Esterel Studio has been used for historically. Additionally, the company also announced SCADE Lifecycle, which will serve as the main platform driving integrations between Esterel’s products as well as other lifecycle management solutions such as requirements management tools, for which it announced the availability of SCADE LifeCycle Requirements Management Gateway.

Horable Mention

Microsoft announced the general availability of Windows Embedded Compact 7. In recognition of the growing requirement across embedded device classes for advance used interfaces, the release of Compact 7 includes the addition Silverlight for Windows Embedded UI Framework, based on Silverlight 3.0, which enables developers to create user interfaces via Microsoft Expression Blend 3 and Windows Embedded Silverlight Tools. The release also included the platform’s first support for symmetric multiprocessing, which should become increasingly valuable as more OEMs look to incorporate multicore processors into the mobile device designs.

WALKING THE FLOOR

ALT Software announceda large design win at the conference, stating that it had been selected by Singapore-based Anuva Technologies to provide graphics drivers for their new XMC embedded graphics module.

ARM announced the extension of its Keil MDK-Professional tool suite to support development on its Cortex-M series processor IP. The company also announced a new licensing agreement with Fujitsu Semiconductor that features its Cortex-A15 processor and Mali graphics.

Coverity, GrammaTech, and Klocwork were also all in attendance highlighting their latest announcements regarding their static analysis technologies and attempting to drive further growth in the EMEA region.

Enea featured two announcements that were both focused on multicore technology. The first highlighted their support for the Multicore Association’s Multicore Communications API with their LINX middleware. The second announcement introduced their Enea Multicore Migration Platform (MMP), which is intended to ease the migration of legacy applications from unicore to multicore architectures.

In addition to the extension of ThreadX’s support for Renesas’ Electronics’ RX600 Series 32-bit microcontrollers, Express Logic introduced downloadable application modules for its RTOS that now allow applications to dynamically receive additional instructions from local mass storage or networks, thus reducing the need to increase software footprint or memory on the end device.

Green Hills Software had several announcements in concert with the conference. On March 1st, the company announced that its INTEGRITY real-time operating system has been optimized for the Power Architecture Variable Length Encoded (VLE) Instruction Architecture, which is used within the Freescale Qorivva Power Architecture automotive microcontrollers. The company also launched the Green Hills Platform for Smart Energy, which positions their runtime, development tools, and professional services solutions for this growing sector.

Software and system lifecycle management solution vendor LDRA was also in attendance and featured two announcements, the first of which highlighted enhancements to its TBmanager tool aimed at providing greater traceability and transparency of tests and test plans across the development team and development cycle. Their second announcement focused on the addition of support for the IEC 61508 and IEC 61508:2010 functional safety standards in which the LDRA tool suite now automatically checks compliance and provides a mechanism for generating automated documentation.

McObect exhibited at the conference and highlighted the use of their XtremeDB and Perst embedded databases across a range of embedded systems.

MKS, which counts automotive OEMs as their leading vertical market customer segment,was also in attendance and featured their Integrity software and system lifecycle management solution.

Oracle also exhibited at the conference, highlighting the use of its Java solutions for embedded and mobile systems development.

Pentek was in attendance and announced enhancements to its ReadyFlow board support package for its Cobalt, Xlinx Virtex-6 based, FPGA module family with the intent of speeding its customers overall embedded system development.

Programming Research (PRQA) announced the addition of a new dataflow analysis module to its flagship QA·C and QA·C ++ toolsets that includes a Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) solver engine.

Real-time Systems also used the embedded world conference as a venue to highlight their flagship solutions, which include a real-time hypervisor as well as an IEEE 1588 software stack solution.

EDA vendor Synopsys highlighted four different announcements over the course of the exhibition: the support of PCI Express 3.0 by its DesignWare IP, the introduction of Proteus LRC for lithography verification, the availability of a HAPS-600 High Capacity FPGA-Based Prototyping Solution, and their collaboration with Xlinx to product a methodology manual for the FPGA-Based Prototyping of SoC Designs.

SYSGOannounces today the release of version 3.2 of its PikeOS, which extends SMP support from x86 to ARM, PowerPC and SPARC architectures and also includes a new SMP capable Linux Personality, performance improvements, and many enhancements in tools.

Wind River announced a 64-bit version of it VxWorks RTOS, updated certification evidence for the industrial IEC 61508 standard as well as the extension of its On-Board program to a number of new partners.

VDC Research Group (VDC) is a technology market research and strategy consulting firm that advises clients in a number of technology markets including: Embedded Software and Tools, Automatic Identification and Data Collection, Embedded Hardware and Systems, Industrial Automation and Control, Mobile and Wireless, and Power Conversion and Control. Using rigorous primary research and analysis techniques, the firm helps its clients identify, plan for, and capitalize on current and emerging market opportunities. We strive to deliver exceptional value to our clients by leveraging the considerable technical, operational, educational and professional experience of our research and consulting staff. During our nearly four decades of ongoing operation, we have had the pleasure of serving most of the world’s leading technology companies, many high-profile start-ups, and numerous blue-chip early and later stage investors. Our products and services consist of research reports, annual research programs, and custom research and consulting services. Founded in 1971, the firm is located in the Boston area. Please visit our Web site at www.vdcresearch.com to learn more.

The Embedded Systems Industry Bulletin is published as part of VDC’s Embedded Software Market Intelligence Service. VDC has been providing embedded systems market intelligence for over 20 years.

01/24/2011

We will be making the trip across the Atlantic again this year to visit the largest embedded technology tradeshow of the year, embedded world in Nuremberg, Germany. Last year, the conference boasted over 18,000 visitors and over 700 exhibiting companies!

While we are at the conference, we welcome the opportunity to meet with attending vendors to learn more about recent announcements, your company and its solutions.

You can arrange a meeting time with VDC by doing one of the following:

Please check out the embedded world website for more information on the conference program as well as information on all of the companies that will be exhibiting. You can also click here to register.We look forward to seeing you at the show!

10/21/2010

VDC, an independent technology research firm, is conducting research for its study of the software and systems lifecycle management tools market. The research covers technologies and practices related to embedded and enterprise/IT software systems engineering, and will help to inform VDC's ongoing study of engineering project teams and systems.

In appreciation of your participation -

The first 400 respondents who complete the survey will receive:

- Choice of a $10 Amazon.com gift certificate or elect to make a $10 donation to FIRST (a charitable organization helping to promote the sciences to the next generation of engineers and developers).

All respondents (including the first 400) who complete the survey will receive:

- Entry into the grand prize drawing for an Apple iPad;

- Immediate access to a summary of VDC's 2010 Embedded Engineering Survey results at the end of the survey; and

- A summary of the 2010 Software and System Development survey findings once the survey is complete later this year.

06/15/2010

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